In the cargo bay, Janeway demands to know: "What's taking them so long?" Kes: "Lifesigns are stable. There's no interruption of brain wave activity." Kes: "Captain, the norepinephrine levels are rising. They're well above baseline. Some of that is to be expected, but these levels indicate abnormal stress." Janeway: "Alright. I'm going to try to bring them out with our backup systems." Kes: "Initiating resuscitation. The body temperature is rising." Janeway: "What happened?" Kes: "Their bodies are returning to stasis condition, Captain." Tuvok: "Someone is terminating the recall command, from inside the system."

Kim feels compelled to obey the Clown. Clown: "Very wise of you, my technically-minded fellow. Now, get rid of it completely. It's an intrusion. It's ruining the party." Kim: "That would be a mistake." Clown: "No mistake. A mistake if you refuse." Kim: "You'd be missing an opportunity."

Clown: "Trying to get the better of me? Trying to trick me? I know everything you know, Harry Kim. I know how much you miss Libby. I know how you can never hit that G-sharp in the Mozart concerto. Do you think I don't know you're trying to defeat me?" Kim: "Fine. So you know. You'll also know that what I'm about to tell you is the truth. You'd be smart to let one of us go." Clown: "Would I?" Kim: "This is your chance to send the outside world a message, to tell them your demands." Clown: "I have only one demand: to exist!" Torres: "Then you'd better let us tell them." Kim: "Otherwise you run the risk of our people shutting down the whole system, because I promise you they won't let us stay in here for long." The Clown decides to think about it. Meanwhile the carnival resumes.

Kim and Torres question the Kohl survivors. Kim asks: "How did this happen?" Kohl woman: "The system was designed to be adaptive, to observe and respond to our thoughts, and adjust the environment to our wishes." Torres: "Who wished him up?" She refers to the Clown. Viorsa: "It happened over months without our even realising it. All of us had fears about survival, recovery. We never anticipated the computer would manifest those fears into him." Kohl man: "Our only hope was that someone like you would come along and find us." Kim: "It's almost as though he can read our minds. He seems to know what we're thinking." Kohl woman: "He's generated by the system, and our brains are monitored by the system. So, yes, in a manner of speaking, he can." Viorsa: "But there is a delay before he becomes aware of what we're thinking." Kohl woman: "It takes a few minutes for our brain activity to be processed by the system."

Clown: "Well, I've come to a decision, with the help of my friends." Indicating Torres: "You, leave." Indicating Kim: "You, stay." To Torres: "And tell your beloved Captain Janeway that if we die, they die, including you, dear Harry. You, who becomes my best friend as of today. Because she would never kill you, would she, Harry? No. She's like a dear, old mother to you, isn't she?" He chuckles. To Torres: "Go!"

Torres activates the recall control.

	Janeway: "Someone's activated the recall subroutine."
	Kes: "Captain, it's Lieutenant Torres. Her body temperature is rising. She should regain consciousness in about twelve minutes." Janeway: "At least we'll finally get the answers to a few questions."

A council of war is held in the Briefing Room. The Doctor participates via monitor from Sickbay. Janeway: "Well, let's start with the obvious question. If they're demanding to exist, can we find a way to let them exist in this artificial world of theirs?" Torres: "Not unless you're prepared to leave one person in stasis permanently." Doctor: "I concur with Lieutenant Torres. The computer uses bio-neural feedback from the participants' brains to create the environment." Janeway: "Doctor, is there a way to speed up resuscitation?" Doctor: "Only by a few minutes. Anything more and we'd be risking serious brain damage. Ten minutes would be about the best we could do." Paris: "Ten minutes and all the hostages could be killed." Janeway: "Then it seems to me our first order of business should be to reduce the number of hostages. All we have to do now is decide how to negotiate with an emotion, with a manifestation of fear." Tuvok: "Fear is the most primitive, the most primordial of biological responses." Janeway: "The ability to recognise danger, to fight it or run away from it, that's what fear gives us. But when fear holds you hostage, how do you make it let go?" Neelix: "Maybe we should try to make him laugh. A good joke just," but he notices the others are feeling too serious to entertain his suggestion, "er, seems to make er, fear dissolve. Well, it does in me, anyway." Janeway: "I think something a little more responsive to the clown's demand. B'Elanna, maybe you can come up with a way to modify the system, so it can run without bio-neural interaction." Chakotay: "How do we negotiate without sending in another hostage?" Janeway: "Good question. We have to come up with a safer method of communication."

Viorsa to Kim: "I regret very much what has happened to you. You came to help. You didn't deserve this. I regret so many things." Kim: "Look, we don't have time for regret. My people are working on a way, right now, to get us out of here. And we have to help them if we can." Viorsa, despairingly: "You'll leave hope behind after a few months of this." In the background, the Clown is laughing hysterically, caught up in the antics of his carnival troupe. Kim: "Why does he do it?" Kohl man: "We're his canvas, his blocks of marble. With us, he practices his ghastly art." Clown: "Thinking about escape, are we, Harry? Naughty, naughty. I don't like those thoughts. We're going to have to do something about them." Kohl woman: "He's new. He can't help thinking about getting out." Clown: "He can! You don't think about it any more. Oh, but he's new, and you're old. New and old. Old and new. Well, then, the answer is to simply make you old, Harry. Are you afraid of growing old, Harry? Is that what you fear? Being cared for by nurses?" Suddenly Kim is transformed into an inform old man. Little Woman: "Time for your medicine." A long-handled spoon is put to his lips. Clown: "You don't like being helpless, do you, Harry? You like to take care of yourself. Yes, I know how you hate to feel like the baby on the crew." He transforms Kim into a baby. The Clown wallows in the fun, cackling, and talking baby-language to him. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, what's the matter, Harry? Oh, does my costume frighten you, eh? Cootchy-coo. Yeah. Oh, look at little Harry fly. Whoo! Whoo! There he goes. Whoo! Whee! Ha, ha. Alright, that's enough." He restores Kim to his normal appearance. Kim says determinedly: "This is not reality. It's an illusion." Clown: "When your only reality is an illusion, then illusion is a reality." Kim: "Like the man said: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself'." Clown: "Oh, I thought we were going to be friends. Didn't want to do this, Harry. No, I didn't want to bring this up in front of the others, but er I know what really scares you. I know when you were nine, your parents took you to that colony, a radiation disaster, a humanitarian mission. You visited a hospital. You remember." He chuckles. "You wandered off by yourself where you weren't supposed to be." Kim repeats aloud to himself: "'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself'." Clown: "You saw people and things you weren't supposed to see - sick and dying. Keep repeating: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He repeats this and the carnival hangers-on join in the chant: "'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' The Clown continues: "And how about: 'There's no place like home. There's no place like home.' Ha, ha! Try clicking your heels together three times." Kim is forcibly restained on a mock-hospital bed. "Oh, but your legs are restrained, aren't they? Just like that little girl you saw on the operating table." Suddenly the Clown is wearing a surgeon's masks. "The doctor called for a scalpel." He is handed a gruesome-looking scalpel. "She looked at you, her face filled with fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Do you remember?" Kim screams: "No!!!!" The Clown is about to insert the scalpel into Kim when the Doctor's hand takes it from him. The Doctor has appeared in the artificial environment. Doctor: "Excuse me. You're not holding that properly. Correct positioning of the index finger is necessary for optimal dexterity." The Clown is totally surprised by the Doctor's presence. "Who are you?!" Doctor: "I'm Captain Janeway's representative. I'm here to negotiate with you. Are you well, Mr Kim?" Kim, freed from the hospital bed: "Starting to feel better." Clown to Doctor: "You're different. I don't know anything about you. You're not on the system." Doctor: "I would be pleased to tell you all about myself at a more appropriate time. For now, suffice it to say that I am here by a miracle of technology. Now, let's get down to the issues, shall we?" Clown: "How am I supposed to negotiate if I don't know what you're thinking?" Doctor: "I have a very trustworthy face. My captain is prepared to give you exactly what you asked for, under the condition you release all the hostages." Clown snorts. "Release the hostages?" Doctor: "We would provide continuing input from a simulated brain. A computer model that would generate-" The Clown interrupts: "Simulated brain? Simulated?" Doctor: "I, myself, have a comparable-" Clown: "It won't work. It's a lie. Tell him, Harry." Kim: "I don't know that for sure." Clown: "Liar! Viorsa! Get over here!" Viorsa hurries over. "Tell him." Viorsa: "It might require a recalibration of the optronic pathways." Clown: "Liar! After all this time, do you think I can't tell when you lie?!" Doctor: "The simulated brain-" Clown: "Would leave me at your mercy! No! They stay." Doctor: "The Captain is prepared to risk the lives of the hostages rather than leave them under your control." Clown: "Who is she to tell me what I have to do?" Doctor: "She's the one out there with the off switch in her hand." Clown: "She would never kill Harry." Kim: "I'd rather die than spend my life in here with you. She knows that." Clown: "I won't let them go." Doctor: "A compromise. Let some of them go." Clown: "No." Doctor: "We've studied your system. You only need one to survive." Clown: "And if that one gets sick and dies? No, I need them all. Now go away, and tell your Captain Janeway I'm disappointed - I expected more from her." Doctor: "If we could just-" Clown: "Go away!" His hangers-on echo him: "Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!" Doctor to Kim: "I'll be back." As he goes, the chants of the carnival folk can be heard: "Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!"

In Sickbay, the Doctor has reported. Janeway: "Well, I'm sorry I don't live up to his expectations. What's your opinion of him, Doctor?" Doctor: "Unstable, unpredictable, everything you'd expect from Fear." Tuvok: "Captain, the longer we allow this to continue, the more likely it is that he will take his frustrations out on the hostages." Janeway: "I agree, and I can't allow that to happen. We're going to have to mount some kind of rescue mission. Doctor, if we do simply disconnect the hostages-" Doctor: "There would certainly be brain damage." Janeway: "How much damage? Could you possibly repair it?" Doctor: "Possibly, yes. Would Mr Kim still be able to hold his clarinet when I was done? Possibly. The brain is such an interesting organ." Chakotay: "Could we switch over to a simulated brain without the Clown noticing it?" Torres: "Oh, he'd notice. He was very smart to reject the whole notion of a simulated brain. It just wouldn't be the same. There is no way an artificial intelligence can replace actual brain functions." Doctor: "I'll choose not to take that personally, Lieutenant. For what it's worth, Mr Viorsa suggested there would be a way to make a simulated brain function in this system. He suggested it would take a recalibration of the optronic pathways." Torres: "I don't know what he could have been talking about. The optronic pathways have nothing to do with the neural interface. It doesn't make any sense." Tuvok: "Then perhaps he had another reason for saying it." Chakotay: "How do the optronic pathways function in this system, B'Elanna?" Torres: "They, they control the basic elements of the environment, access data banks that were programmed when the system was created." Suddenly she realises the significance of Viorsa's words: "If we interrupt the optronic pathways, we could disassemble that entire world and its characters, piece by piece." Janeway: "If we can't remove the hostages from the environment, then we might be able to remove the environment from the hostages." Torres: "How did Viorsa manage to communicate this without the Clown knowing about it?" Doctor: "Perhaps it was because the Clown's attention was divided at the time." Janeway: "And you're going to continue to provide him with distractions, Doctor. B'Elanna, how long will it take to block these pathways?" Torres: "I'm not sure how many there are, Captain, and I'll have to do it manually because we don't know how to deprogram the system." Janeway: "You'll only have a few minutes at best. Once Fear knows what we're up to, it will be a race against time to save the lives of those hostages."

TOP BACK PREVIOUS NEXT EPISODE INDEX SEASON INDEX SITE HELP BRIDGE